Griselinia littoralis

Griselinia littoralis is a tough evergreen New Zealand native tree with attractive, deep-green, glossy and leathery, oval leaves often with a slightly wavy profile. It has a wide geographical range across all three New Zealand islands where is grows from sea level up to elevations of 1000m. Capable of withstanding salt air it is often found on coastal headlands and gullies but its growth is limited to a scrubby bush by such exposure and it is in the shelter and moist humid air of the New Zealand bush that Griselinia littoralis can really develop its full potential, sometimes growing into a tall tree to 20m although more often as a multi-stemmed medium-sized tree. Its seeds often lodge in the nooks and crannies of other trees and like the more frost-sensitive Griselinia lucida it sometimes grows as an epiphyte. This may surprise many gardeners who have been sold Grislinia littoralis as nothing more than utilitarian hedging-stock. This rather unimaginative use of such a beautiful plant started in the UK and has now unfortunately found its way back to New Zealand. In a commercial world, hedging plants represent the ability to shift a lot of product fast. Grislinia littoralis deserves better. It does make a good screening windbreak if left to grow large but to confine it to a hedge seems all too sad, a triumph of commerce over imagination. To my mind, its large foliage does not suit being clipped. You, dear reader - gentle artist that you are - will already be envisioning this gorgeous plant in a new light: as a towering addition to your temperate evergreen jungle or as a broadleaf epiphyte clinging to existence in the hollow of a tree. Be different.